- One second of magic -

GoPro underwater focus fix

Posted September 3, 2010 by byadmin

The GoPro HD Hero video camera has created a huge buzz this year. It is a small super wide angle video camera with a rugged underwater housing and several mountings for different applications: you can attach it on your car, boat, helmet, bike, wrist, fishing rod, guitar, model helicopter, plane, skateboard… Basically anywhere! It’s small and handy and films with a maximum 170 degree angle (720p or 920p HD). You can also switch to a narrower view of 127 degrees and get full 1080p HD. Well, read all about the specs elsewhere, this blog is not about that.

There’s namely one big disadvantage with the GoPro HD Hero. The underwater picture is blurry and out of focus. As they say on the GoPro official webpage: Please note that due to the curved lens of the waterproof housing for the HD HERO camera and standard def Wide HERO cameras, you will notice a slight loss of sharpness with underwater images.

I can tell you this loss of sharpness is not ”slight”. It’s a matter of being able to use the material or not.

Luckily, there’s a way of getting around this problem. Either you can order a special underwater housing from a second party manufacturer, or you can do as I did, modify your housing yourself. It’s easy, fast and cheap. Here we go, gopro:

You need:

GoPro underwater housing

Philips Avent baby bottle (probably some other brands do as well)

Hobby knife

Saw

Sand paper

UV-filter ø 58 mm

Black permanent marker

Epoxy glue

See the instructions on the following slide show:

This modified housing works great on the narrower 127 degree angle. The superwide angle captures some of the ring in the corners. However, I prefer the narrower view and the full HD when shooting underwater.

The result? See for yourself:

7 Comments

This is great! I tried to use my gopro hd hero to capture big fat char under the ice last spring. The blurry shots were disappointing. Will follow this tutorial step by step asap as I love the DIY side of film making accessories!